Intense drama is inaugural production

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT), Chesley Plemmons Theater Critic

Published 1:00 am, Wednesday, August 20, 2008

The final summer excursion up to Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., was a theatrical double bill. First, an occasion to see the new Elayne P. Bernstein Theater, and secondly, to witness the world premiere of Christine Whitley's "The Goatwoman of Corvis County."

The new space is sleek and comfortable. A winding path alongside a pool leads to the theater, which has an impressively expansive lobby and an interior adaptable to three different seating configurations -- for "Goatwoman" it offers 166 seats on three sides of a thrust stage.

This is the first play by Whitley, a member of the Shakespeare company, and she has written a compelling drama about a dysfunctional Tennessee family that stays on target until the last 20 minutes when a series of out-of-the-blue revelations muddies the water.

Set in a rural neighborhood outside Nashville, the play focuses on the highly volatile Charlotte (Keira Naughton), a lady who has married often but not well, and has earned the "goatwoman" nickname because of her uncanny ability to cure goats of their ailments.

Charlotte lives in an apartment over a barn with her redneck, construction worker husband Randy (
Thomas Kee
), and David (
David Rosenblatt
) her 16-year-old son from a previous marriage.

To compensate for not having built her the house he promised when they were wed, Randy has constructed a private room for Charlotte, which she has stuffed with dresses, shoes and jewelry she's purchased with money raised in the consignment shop where she works -- money which is clearly not hers. Now there's hell to pay as the shop managers want the money back and Charlotte refuses to return the clothes and accessories and pay off her debt. When Randy rants about her extravance -- and stealing -- she replies with her mother's mantra: "There's nothing wrong in looking good before you go out!"

The playwright writes with a sure ear for Southern blue collar characters -- just a step or two above hillbillies -- and director
Robert Walsh
has gleaned pitch-perfect performances from his cast. That includes Daniel Berger-Jones as John, a novice attorney from Nashville sent by a friend to help Charlotte out of her predicament.

Dysfunctional Southern families are a mainstay in the theater -- think "Crimes of the Heart" or even the current "August: Osage County." Playwrights like the genre because the characters can often be over the top without seeming artificial. Actors favor them too, for they're generally given a free pass for high-power histrionics.

Which is not to say the performances here are out of control -- far from it. Naughton, who sparkled in the recent, frothy "Book
Club Play
" at the
Berkshire Theatre
Festival down the road in Stockbridge, is a ball of fire as Charlotte. Funny, stubborn, scheming and quick with a gun, she's a southern belle with moxie and a delight to watch.

Kee matches her in intensity, giving the play the feet on the ground it needs to be believable. His Randy may be the "alpha male" that Charlotte accuses him of, but he's also just a little boy over his depth emotionally.

Rosenblatt is touching as the psychologically wounded young boy, and Berger-Jones is amusing as the fly almost caught in Charlotte's flirtatious web.

Susan Zeeman Rogers
's set looks appropriately outfitted in linoleum and Formica, but Charlotte is obviously a better housekeeper than one might suspect. The kitchen, where most of the action takes place, is as spotless as a Good Housekeeping layout.

Director Walsh has done an exemplary job of staging this work, capturing the dichotomy of humor and heartbreak the playwright has envisioned.

"Goatwoman" is an impressive debut for Whitney and except for those jarring, hard to assimilate revelations near the end, a very entertaining piece of theater.

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"The Goatwoman of Corvis County" plays through Aug. 31 at the
Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre
, Shakespeare & Company, 70 Kemble St., Lenox, Mass. Most performances are matinees at 3:30 p.m.; evenings at 8:30 and some morning performances at 10:30 a.m. Running time is two hours including one 15-minute intermission.